Homecoming
by Vampbarbie
Summary: John gets home...but nothings how he expected.rnRated R for 2 incidents of strong language and severe angst. I own nothing.


"Canaveral? This is Commander John Crichton." My voice is harsh, raspy, and there's a choke on every word. "Is anyone listening? I'm approaching on vector seven three nine."

Wormholes, one day I knew they would take my soul. I just hadn't realised that day was today.

"Aeryn? Wake up…" The edge to my voice was strange and I realised it was fear. Fear for Aeryn wasn't something I was used to.

And Earth was rising larger in the viewscreen and there were red-hot sparks licking round the module.

"Canaveral!"

I glanced at Aeryn over my shoulder. She was still unconscious.

"Dear God...someone, anyone…please don't let her die. Someone please listen to me…please…please…" My voice cracks as I hit the Atlantic Ocean.

I knew exactly what moment it had all gone wrong. When Moya had come out of starburst into the path of those three pirate ships. Space pirates…another thing to wrap my head around. They'd boarded before we had a chance to do anything and Moya was taking a pounding.

The others…the pirates had got the others… Pip, Sparky, D'Argo had gone down swinging. Aeryn had been shot. My mind is a kind of haze about that. Aeryn shot…I vaguely remember dragging her to the module, my hands sticky with her blood…

Then wormholes and prayers. And Earth. Home….

The light was too bright and my head hurt. Aeryn's blood was still on my hands.

"I already told you. Twice. Now answer some of my questions. Where is she?" The question ended in a growl.

"Commander Crichton there are quarantine procedures to be enforced…"

I stood up and wanted to hit him. I knew I looked threatening, with the long leather Peacekeeper coat. I didn't look like the clean-cut astronaut who had left nearly two cycles ago…when did I stop calling them years? I reached for my gun, but of course it wasn't there. They'd taken it from me, when they fished us out of the Atlantic.

But that voice broke through the moment. One of the few voices that I would obey without question.

"John. Sit down."

I turned to the speaker.

"Hello dad."

_He looked harder. There was a dangerous edge to him that hadn't been there before. His hands were bloody. Where had he got that coat from? He looked like some kind of mercenary. _

"_John we thought…" in moments I crossed the room and hugged him. He hugged back but only briefly._

"_Where is she" his voice was insistent._

"_You know there are procedures for this sort of thing John. Protocols. You know that."_

"_Procedure!" he spat out venomously. "I know very well the 'protocols' they'll have for this. This isn't procedure, this is Aeryn!"_

_Then suddenly he spun on his heel and grabbed the man asking him questions. Some military person I guessed. Probably not the person who called me with the news. John had him by the collar, up against the wall. His face was contorted with rage._

"_Where is she?" he yelled in the man's face._

"Tell me!"

I twisted the man's collar in my hands, feeling the material straining and ripping. I wanted to beat him until he broke. This felt good. I needed this. I would beat him until he was unrecognisable. Until he told me where she was. I would do this for Aeryn.

I didn't notice the needle in my neck, not until I was hitting the floor.

_I, Jack Crichton, had used every contact I had to keep John out of the quarantine procedures. But I didn't recognise my son anymore. There was a hardness around his face, the rages that he flew into and the odd words he used. And the nightmares. Where he cried out names over and over. Aeryn…the girl. When questioned about them John went stubbornly silent. Loud noises spooked him and he'd grab at his right thigh for the gun that he'd landed with. _

_The only one who ever got through to him was his sister. He'd never been a 'mommy's boy' but he clung to her like she was his mother; he trailed her round the house, getting under her feet._

"_Look…I…." they were the only words he has spoken in days. His voice tired._

"_What John honey? You can tell me."_

"_Where is she? Aeryn. Please I need her." _

_John buried his head in her chest and cried. His whole body shaking with violent sobs. I've never seen my son like this, and I don't want too._

"_Make it stop please…please…I want my mommy. I want to go home…"_

"_You are home honey."_

_John sinks to his knees on the kitchen floor, his arms wrapped around himself like he is cold, and he rocks himself gently._

"_They get inside my head," he mumbles. "They want to kill me…Aeryn…I love her. I want her back. I want my Aeryn." He stares at his hands. "I don't want to kill anymore."_

All his sister can do is stroke his hair as he cries.

No, I'm not home, I think bitterly. This was all I had wanted. But not now. Not like this. Some homecoming. I'm not home, not without Aeryn. I need her. There's an aching space inside me, that doesn't stop hurting. And I know she's gone and I can't bear it. It hurts.

I know dad doesn't get me anymore. No one does. How could they?

DK came round a few times, but he seemed loud and obnoxious. Like a puppy dog that won't go away. I think my silence scared him. He doesn't come anymore.

And they don't understand half the things I say, I hadn't realised how odd some of the things sounded, when on Moya they were everyday words.

And they don't realise what will upset me sometimes. They just don't get it. They don't get me.

The drinking starts soon after, stumbling home in the early hours of the morning, if at all, and passing out on the doorstep. His blue eyes are haunted. He is unshaven and his hair is growing out.

I know I'm drinking a lot. It makes it easier. I go out and flirt with other girls, make them want me. Tell them I'm an astronaut, that's a real chick magnet. I'll be a regular Casanova if I survive the night. But I never leave with them; I can't go through with it. Because of her.

Half the time I sit on the doorstep until I fall asleep because I've forgotten my keys. It's been so long since I had to deal with the concept of keys. So I sit there in the rain and stare at the sky. I wonder what Aeryn would make of real Earth rain. The kind that soaks you to the skin. I look up and wonder if she's looking at the same bit of sky.

_Then he'll wake up, in a sweaty tangle of sheets, and it will start again. He doesn't let the hangover clear before the next drink. _

I normally wake up screaming. That's not what has happened to you. It can't possibly be. There are monsters in my head. I need to drown them.

_Now he drinks in his room, the door barricaded, and he doesn't leave much. Only to run to the kitchen, snatch as much food as he can carry and retreat to his hideaway. And even that doesn't happen much anymore. _

I'm not hungry anymore. Its ok, I don't need to eat. Vodka is a food group. When I first got here they gave me mountains of food. All the things that they thought I'd love; burgers, fries, ice cream, chocolate mousse…and I wolfed it down. I thought I'd missed it…and I just kept throwing up. After food cubes everything makes me sick. My throat always hurts from the constant throwing up, and I've lost weight. I feel tired all the time and I just ache. My stomach muscles are rebelling against me. Even the smell of most food makes me want to vomit. I know I look terrible.

I smashed the small shaving mirror in my room so I didn't have to see those haunted staring blue eyes and the grey skin and accept that this was me. I sat on the floor and pulled out each shard of glass from between the knuckles with my fingers, not caring that I got cut more. It didn't hurt. Blood like hers smears my hands.

I went downstairs and there was DK and Dad, talking like old friends in the kitchen. I swigged from the half empty vodka bottle in my hand. It burns all the way down my throat. So DK came to see Dad did he. I overheard precisely three words before I laughed and they saw me.

"He needs help…" DK's voice was insistent.

Their heads snapped round to look at me as I laughed.

"Help? Like therapy?"

"John, what have you done?"

I glanced down at my bloody hands. "Nothing," I snap. "But therapy?"

"It might help you…."

"Help me? Frell you, frell both of you! How can anyone help me?" My voice is rising. "You don't know anything about what happened to me. You sat here and left me for dead."

"John! Sit down!" The tone in my father's voice is the one that used to make me afraid.

"No! You have no fucking idea. You tried to send me back to work and that didn't work! You can't pretend this didn't happen…that She didn't happen. I'm not the man you knew anymore."

I fling the vodka bottle to the floor, where it shatters.

He's right. He's not my son anymore. He's some other John Crichton entirely.

"You listen here right now…"

"No you listen dad. How do you think a shrink will help me? I'll be in padded room before the week's out."

"We're trying John…"

"No!" He shouts now, his cheek twitching. "You're not! If you were trying you'd be fighting to get Aeryn back."

DK stands up and moves to him.

"John, you know what happens with creatures like this…"

"Creatures?" John's fist flashes out and catches DK straight in the cheekbone. He goes down. "She's not a creature! She's Aeryn!" His hand goes for the missing weapon again. "You're cowards! Both of you, fucking bastards."

He spins on his heel and leaves.

I started writing my equation that day. A mirror image of what I wrote on Moya. How to create wormholes from Earth, but ones that can turn back time. It's feasible. I wrote numbers, symbols, and words, all for you Aeryn.

Aeryn's dead. I know that now. I wish I didn't. But I can't fool myself anymore. I wish I knew where they buried you. I hope you didn't suffer…I wonder if it hurts. Aeryn…I want to put my arms around you and hold you. Kiss you. Once more, just once. Smell your hair. The monsters in my head whisper things to me. Over and over. Blood. Always blood in my dreams. There's blood in your hair. Screaming. I'm not sure if it's me or not. I push my knuckles into my eyes feeling the tears welling again. They splash hotly down my nose. This house seems too quiet. It's not alive around me. I can feel you burning inside me, and I'll scratch you out of my veins. Yes I've got a gun. Its not Winona but it'll do. I'll be with you soon Aeryn. I will find you, I will find you.

One day he ended it all. One shot from a pistol we didn't even know he had.

_We ventured into his room after that. On every available surface he had scrawled things. 'Aeryn, Moya, D'Argo' and other unintelligible words. And drawings, violent and disturbing. Equations, vast equations, which spread across walls, the ceiling. He had even pulled up the carpet and written on the floorboards. _

'_Wormholes take my soul.' _

_But one wall is devoted to the mantra "I don't belong here. This isn't my homecoming. Aeryn I'll find you, I promise. I don't belong anywhere without you". Written over and over in his handwriting, and the last line down the bottom is changed, unfinished "I don't belong anywhere…"_


End file.
